Field
Various features relate to doped chiral polymer metamaterials.
Background
A metamaterial is a man-made material that exhibits particular properties and/or behaviors that cannot be found in natural occurring material. Typically, metamaterials are engineered to achieve particular objectives. Metamaterials are assembled from several discrete individual elements made of microscopic materials, such as metals and plastics. These materials are arranged together in a periodic pattern structure and/or repeating design structure. It is this periodic pattern structure and/or repeating design structure that provide metamaterials with their unique properties and/or behaviors.
FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a metamaterial 100. As shown in FIG. 1, the metamaterial includes a set of repeating structures 102. Each repeating structure 102 includes several discrete elements. Specifically, each repeating structure 102 includes a board 104, a first split-ring resonator 106, a second split-ring resonator 108, a third split-ring resonator 110, and a wire 112. Each repeating structure 102 is arranged in a periodic repeating pattern to form the metamaterial 100. For example a first repeating structure 102 is positioned parallel to a second repeating structure 120. In addition, a third repeating structure 130 is positioned orthogonally to the first repeating structure 120 and/or the second repeating structure 130.
One major downside to current metamaterials is that they are difficult to manufacture due to the complexity of their structure. This limits their use in greater wavelength ranges than the complex repeating unit size, not readily available for optical ranges. In addition, the way the repeating structures are coupled together in the metamaterials makes them extremely rigid and unflexible.
Therefore, there is a need for material that exhibits exotic electromagnetic properties and/or behaviors without complex repeating architectures and geometries. Ideally, such a composite material will be easy to manufacture, void of some of the structural complexities of current metamaterials, can be manufactured at lower cost than that current metamaterials, and/or exhibits more flexibility than current metamaterials.